


This Thing Like Seeing

by BabyCharmander



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Blindness, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Muteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyCharmander/pseuds/BabyCharmander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wheatley is saved from exile in space at the cost of his eyesight. The blinded core must now work together with a certain mute test subject to survive in the outside word, but figuring out how to communicate isn't their only problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya folks! BabyCharmander here with another Portal fic. This fic was originally going to be a one-shot, but it wound up… a bit longer.
> 
> This was written for a prompt asking for blind!Wheatley and mute!Chell. So I know Chell is not truly mute in canon; it’s just for the purposes of the prompt here.
> 
> And before we begin, I would like to give a huge thanks to my sister and Jaywings for beta-reading this for me! You guys are awesome.

_CRUNCH._

“ _AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH OW OW OW OW OW_ BLOODY _HECK_ THAT HURTS—wait—wait—I’m… I’m _not_ dead? Or in space? H… h- _ha_! Hahahahahahahaha oh she’s going to kill me isn’t she.” 

“ _It’s certainly tempting._ ”

Wheatley wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

On one hand, he had survived being forcibly ripped from his chassis, briefly sucked out into space, and violently flung across the room after being yanked back in.

On the other hand, he had been forcibly ripped from his chassis, briefly sucked out into space, and violently flung across the room after being yanked back in.

Oh, and he was also in the same room as an omnipotent AI and the woman that had been, for the past few hours, trying to kill him.

_Scraaaape… Whir, whir… Scraaaape…_

“Wh-what’s that?” He tried to open his optic, only to jerk back in surprise when he discovered his metal eyelids were already fully open. He strained his optic instead, trying to narrow his eyelids, only to give a yelp at the feeling of broken glass jabbing at the edges of the eyelids and _into_ his optic. “O-ow…!”

_Scraaape… whirrrrrrr—clank, clank, clank, whiirrrr…_

“ _There we are._ ”

“Wh-what’s going on, what…” He tried to blink, and twitched when he felt the piece of glass fall out of his eye. “Ow—! Oh, wait, that’s better, got that b-bloody thing out—wait, wait, what if I needed that? I think… maybe I needed that… D-dropped it on the floor, I think, could you— _URK_!” Something grabbed him by the sides, hoisting him into the air, and he began to struggle, flailing his handles about. “Ah—no—I-I meant pick up th-the part of m-me that fell, there, n-not _me—_ AAGH!” The pincers shook him, and he felt a mounting panic as more things fell out of his optic—things he was starting to suspect were fragments of a broken lens.

“ _Shut up and look around you, moron. I have more important things to deal with than picking up whatever might be falling out of your worthless core._ ”

“I-I… I’d, er, love to,” he stammered, his glitching vocal processor simulating a higher pitch than normal, “but, th-the thing is, see… er, I _don’t_ see. Th-there’s, um, a s-sort of blinding pain in my optic— _literal_ blinding pain, because, um, I-I’m sort-of, well—my optic’s not… g-giving me visual input, so to speak, and—and that’s just—just a bit of a requirement for, um, looking around, which I would love to do, really, and—uh—wh-what I’m trying t-to say… i-is—!”

“ _Oh. How…_ interesting.”

Given the sheer volume of the voice and the quiet whirring sounds nearby, he was pretty sure he was being held fairly close to _her_ head, which she must have re-attached to his body— _her_ body.

And the fact that he couldn’t see any of this made it about ten times more terrifying. For all he knew, she could be aiming one of those mashy spike plates in his direction, or moving him over the incinerator, or just staring at him intently with one of her frightening glares, or, or…

“…do whatever you want with me just please fix my optic I can’t see I can’t see I can’t see _I can’t see_ —”

“ _Oh, I’ll_ certainly _be doing whatever I want. But that does not include anything that concerns you._ ”

The pincers opened, and he dropped to the floor, landing on his already-damaged optic. Flailing his handles against the ground, he simulated a choked sob as he felt smaller fragments of his optic lens crumble away. With some work and a few nasty crunches, he managed to shut his optic.

Not that it made much of a difference.

He could hear sounds all around him: _her_ voice booming commands at a few constructs; things scraping against the ground, possibly moving away debris; clanking and tapping noises as the little robots he’d found before—notso little _now_ , compared to his current state—marched into the room; and somewhere, beyond all that, the sound of heavy, unsteady breathing—

With a jolt of clarity that shattered through the murky darkness of his vision, he realized what had happened: He’d taken control of the facility, and then suddenly those little things he’d been feeling—his insecurity, his not-quite-trust of the lady, his frustration at forever being belittled and cast to the side—had been yanked to the forefront of his mind, seeming twenty times bigger since he had so much more room to _think_ about them and suddenly it seemed like _she’d_ been against him, _she’d_ been using him—but… no, it hadn’t been true. His mind had been exaggerating everything, once he’d been attached to the chassis…

But he’d become so powerful and he could do whatever he wanted and he wanted to shut up that stupid potato and shut _her_ up—even though she’d never spoken, she would have made fun of him if she ever did, he had been _sure_ of it—and he punched them down the pit… and… then there had been that overwhelming desire to test, and when he’d complied with it, it brought him that wonderful feeling, and then she’d come back… and… and he would test her, and… then he wasn’t getting that feeling anymore, so he’d tested her _more_ but it wasn’t coming back, so he would just have to get rid of her…

…get… rid…

He’d… he’d tried to kill her. He’d tried to kill the only person—the only _human_ that had ever actually bothered to work with him, to help him, to listen to him…

And now she was lying on the floor somewhere in the room, possibly dying from the injuries _he’d_ inflicted on her—but _where in the room was she_? He couldn’t _see_ her; he couldn’t even look to see if her wounds weren’t fatal...

“ _She will live._ ” 

He opened his optic with a nasty grinding noise, and tried to turn it in the direction of the voice.

“ _However, I can’t say the same for_ you _._ ”

“…oh…”

 

* * *

 

The first thing Chell became aware of was the dull pounding in her head, which was followed by an awareness of a number of bruises, cuts, and burns all around her body. This was in turn very slowly followed by a procession of vague images passing through her mind: the stalemate resolution button, an explosion, that _voice_ , the moon, the earth, the moon—

_She’d been sucked out into space._

Too shocked to realize that the fact she was _still alive_ meant that she probably wasn’t still in space, she forced herself out of her daze, trying to wake up, to ready herself to fight for her life for the thousandth time. She pushed herself up to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arms, and automatically stood in her usual pose: one leg forward, one leg back, one hand gripping the portal device, the other supporting— _where was the portal device_.

With another jolt of shock, she began to look around for that one vital piece of equipment, the thing that had gotten her out of more messes than she’d ever thought she could get into—

“ _Oh, thank_ God _you’re all right._ ”

Chell looked up at the enormous machine that had swung around to meet her, glaring into the yellow optic. She was vaguely aware of two other optics—completely unfamiliar ones—watching her curiously from either side, but she ignored them in favor of the AI in front of her. In spite of what that AI had said days ago—how she would let her go if she put her back in the chassis—she didn’t trust her to keep her word.

“ _You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson…_ ”

GLaDOS learning a lesson? That would be the day.

“ _I thought you were my greatest enemy, when all along you were my best friend._ ”

Best friend? Chell grit her teeth—GLaDOS was definitely lying at this point. It made her nervous, though—what was the AI planning?

The massive robot turned, her yellow optic glancing aside. “ _The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson…_ ” And she turned back, a smile lighting up her near-featureless face. “ _Where Caroline lives in my brain._ ”

“Caroline deleted.”

Wait, what—?!

“ _Goodbye, Caroline._ ”

Chell jumped back, her eyes wide. It shouldn’t have shocked her as much as it did, but the fact that GLaDOS had just killed the very human that had been used to make her—how—how was that even possible?

And if GLaDOS had just killed Caroline, what was she going to do to _her_?

“ _Oh, don’t look so shocked,_ ” GLaDOS said, dropping her false smile as her faceplate fell downward, simulating a scowl. The lights in the room faded with it, leaving the chamber feeling empty and dark. “ _I’ve killed thousands of other worthless humans before. What’s one more? Surely it’s a feeling you can relate to._ ”

So was she going to try to use this to accuse her of murder again? Was she going to use it as an excuse to _kill_ her? Chell swallowed the lump in her throat, looking around the room for something— _anything_ she could use to get out of here. Something…

She blinked, noticing a claw hovering just behind GLaDOS. It held a tiny, shivering form between its pincers, and slowly dragged it forward.

“ _After all, you’ve killed thousands of helpless robots—myself included._ ” The AI loomed closer, tilting her head and giving a challenging look. “ _What’s one more?_ ”

The claw suddenly flung the object in Chell’s direction, and she had to jump up against the wall—where was she, in a lift?—to avoid being hit.

“ _AAAGH_ —! W-watch it there, mate! J-just because I’m already damaged doesn’t mean it’s okay to let me get even more banged up!”

She stared down at the core, whose optic was shut tight as he sat on the floor, shivering. Slowly she felt a burning sensation bubble up within her, making her face heat up in anger— _this_ was the core that betrayed her.

“Ah, um, wh-where am I, right—right now? A-am I actually, uh, sitting by the lady? Lady, are you there?”

Chell twitched in another bolt of anger. After what he’d done, he had the nerve to just talk to her like _this_?

“ _Oh,_ good, _I can see you hate him just as much as I do._ ”

Immediately she looked back up—she’d briefly forgotten the larger robot was even there.

“ _Hate_? N-now that’s a strong word there, luv. Wouldn’t say ‘hate’—more, um, ‘strongly dislike,’ or—or maybe ‘not my kind of chap,’ or—oh, even better! ‘Not my kind of fellow, but, still a pretty nice guy.’ Yeah, that sounds g—”

His voice broke off into a yelp when she pressed the toe of her boot into his side, and he went back to shivering quietly again. Or as quietly as a chatterbox like him could, anyway.

“L-l-look, um, lady, right? Th-that’s—that’s who I’m talking to, I hope? Ah—look, about… well… everything I did back there—I-I really didn’t mean it—”

“ _Yes he did. You know he meant everything._ ” GLaDOS brought herself even closer, her head situated just in front of the human and the core, her optic looking between them. “ _So why would you let him get away with that? You remember what I said before—_ revenge _. We never did finish all that, did we?_ ”

“R-r-r- _revenge_?” Wheatley stammered, his voice glitching up into several octaves higher than it should have been. “N-no, I do not like the sound of that. I-I mean, you know what they say: ‘Revenge is in the eye of the beh’—wait, no, that’s not it. Um—um—wait, I think I’ve got it, it’s, um… ‘Revenge is swee’—no, no, not what I want to say, either, it’s… it’s… ah… oh! This—this is it! ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says—’”

“ _The central core of Aperture Science_ ,” GLaDOS finished, her optic narrowing. “ _You are speaking to the god of this place, moron, so I would watch your vocal processor if I were you. Though, even if you took that statement literally, you lack a functioning eye to watch anything with._ ”

Chell looked up at the AI, her brow furrowing in confusion. A functioning eye? She knew Wheatley’s optic was cracked, but surely it could function just—

Wheatley cracked open his eyelids, and Chell jumped back in horror.

There was no gentle blue glow emanating from his optic—instead, there was a dead black socket.

“ _You see then, lunatic? You can go ahead and exact whatever painful, excruciating revenge you deem necessary on this little moron. He won’t even see it coming._ ” A dark chuckle filled the room as the central AI turned to stare at Wheatley again.

Chell stared down at Wheatley as he slowly widened his eyelids, enabling her to see even more of his damaged face. Even though he wasn’t human, it was still painful to look at—his optic had gone completely black, and the glass lens that normally covered his eye had been shattered, a few stubborn, jagged fragments still sticking to the rim. Apparently his aperture could still contract, but even that function seemed broken—several pieces of the aperture were missing.

“Revenge” had sounded a bit less appetizing after she heard the word come out of GLaDOS’s vocal processor, but now it sounded downright disgusting. How was she supposed to get a satisfying revenge out of hurting an already-damaged core?

Slowly Chell bent down, picking up the blinded core by his handles. He gasped and began to struggle. “Ah! No, no, no, let me go! D-don’t kill me, please! I-I swear I didn’t mean—d-didn’t mean anything I did! P-please, you’ve got to believe me—let me go, let me go, let me— _agh_!” _CLUNK_. “Oooh...”

Chell complied with his request not because she believed him, but because his struggling was hurting her hands.

“ _That was weak. I’ve seen humans in their sixties do more damage than you just did._ ”

Chell shot a glare at GLaDOS, frowning. She was sick of listening to the AI’s insults and doing just whatever the AI felt like telling her to do, and she wasn’t going to do this again. Immediately she sat on the ground, grabbing Wheatley and holding him close.

Whether or not she actually wanted revenge, she decided that she wasn’t going to do it now, just to spite the AI.

“What…?”

“ _What are you doing?_ ” GLaDOS shouted, her optic widening. “ _That moron tried to kill both me and you several times over. Surely he deserves something, don’t you agree?_ ”

She nodded.

“ _So why don’t you do something?_ ”

She forced herself to grin, as much as it clashed with her current feelings.

“ _Oh—you really_ are _a lunatic, aren’t you?_ ” GLaDOS growled, raising herself higher and glaring down at the human.

“What—wha’d she do?” Wheatley stammered, swiveling around in his casing in some vain attempt to see what was going on. “It—it feels like… a-are you carrying me? You’re—you’re protecting me, aren’t you?”

No, she wasn’t. She was just trying to tick GLaDOS off—to not give her the satisfaction of seeing her hurt Wheatley.

“ _You know what? I have a better idea. Revenge is good and all, but it seems the best solution to a problem is the easiest one. And killing you—or getting you to kill him—is hard. So you know what? You win._ ”

 _Clunk_.

You win?

“ _OWW_ —oh, don’t drop me like that, please! J-just… only a blind core, here, j-just a core that can’t see…”

“ _Just go._ ”

The mechanical doors to the lift closed with a quiet _hiss_.

“Wh-what was…?”

The lift began to rise.

“ _It’s been fun_.” GLaDOS turned away, forcing a laugh. “ _Don’t come back._ ”

Chell stood up, mouth hanging ajar as she stared down at the giant computer that was slowly disappearing beneath her. Had… had GLaDOS just sent her to the _surface_?

“Wh-what’s all that about?” Wheatley asked, his blank optic swiveling in its socket. “I-I can’t tell—just—what’s going on out there?”

Ignoring the core, Chell pressed her hand against the cool glass, watching as the facility began to disappear beneath her feet. Floor after floor passed by her, some showing turrets, some showing companion cubes, some showing Science experiments she hadn’t seen before—but all of them fascinating.

“H-hey, don’t… don’t ignore me…”

The lift rose, faster and faster as she drew closer to the surface she had fought so long to reach. She looked upward, waiting for the lift to reach its final destination and hoping this wasn’t another one of GLaDOS’s lies.

“I-I can’t… can’t see what’s going on, you know, um… s-so if you could, ah, just—tell me something? Throw me a bone, o-or a stick, or—well, d-don’t throw anything at me, but…”

The lift began to slow as it reached the higher floors, and she would have been standing on her toes in anticipation if she hadn’t been doing so already.

“P-please, lady… I’m sorry about—about everything, and…”

Finally the lift stopped, the doors opening to reveal a darkened shed. Not exactly what she was expecting, but then the door to the shed swung open, and she jumped back, squinting her eyes against the bright blue sky and golden field of wheat.

She was finally out.

“Lady—! Don’t… don’t…!”

Her entire body trembled as she took a few steps forward, closer and closer to the freedom she had fought so hard for. She was finally free—free from that dark facility, and out in the _real_ world. She was breathing in real air instead of adrenal vapor, seeing true sunlight rather than simulated sunlight and hard light bridges, feeling actual soil beneath her feet rather than panels, and—

“ _LADY_!”

With a jolt of surprise, she winced and turned around—the cry was so full of desperation and sadness that she could no longer ignore it. She looked back into the elevator shaft to find a pathetic-looking lump of metal staring up at her—or trying to. The core was tipped on his side, his shattered optic turning this way and that as he tried in vain to figure out where she was.

“Please lady don’t leave me here she’s going to kill me if you leave me here don’t leave me I can’t even _see_ I’m so sorry please don’t leave me _please_ …”

So easily she could imagine a man on his hands and knees, his face twisted and ugly and dripping with tears and mucus as he begged for her help. It was a pathetic image, and an equally pathetic sound. But then, this was the AI who, just hours earlier, had been trying to kill her with bombs, mashers, and neurotoxin. Why did he deserve any sympathy from her?

“A-are you even still there?” he whimpered, his optic swiveling around all the more desperately. “O-oh please don’t tell me you’ve gone already, I think I’m s-still in the—in the lift, sh-she could bring me down any second please get me out of here…!”

What a sniveling idiot. Getting blinded was _nothing_ compared to what he deserved—which probably involved something along the lines of being beat against a brick wall until his casing shattered. But then, she was pretty sure that would be something GLaDOS would like to do, and the thought of that AI having her way was not an idea Chell was fond of.

Wheatley may have been a moron, but he was probably right about one thing: if Chell left him behind, GLaDOS was going to pull him back into the facility and pulverize him.

Heaving a sigh, she marched back into the shed and crouched in the doorway. Keeping one foot outside to block the door in case it swung closed, she strained to reach forward into the lift, and finally grabbed the core’s upper handle.

“AH—! Wh-who’s there?!” he cried, flailing around for a moment and nearly causing her to drop him. “What’s—oh. _Ooooh_ , you’ve—you came back, didn’t you? I-I honestly didn’t…” His movements calmed as his blank optic swiveled around pointlessly, as though searching for her face. But his lower lid pulled upward, simulating a faint smile. “Thanks.”

Chell frowned—not that he could see it. _Don’t thank me yet_ , she thought sourly before yanking him out of the lift and quickly crawling backward, out into the open.

“Thank you thank you thank you I thought I was going to be left down there with _her_ a-and who knows what she would do to me! …W-well actually I have a pretty good idea—heard of a few cores that’ve been tossed into the incinerator, which… doesn’t really kill you, but, not pleasant… and—wait, wait, a-are we still in the facility?” Once again, his optic began swiveling around as though moving his mechanics enough would magically fix his vision. “W-we are, aren’t we? Just on another floor? Oh, she’s tricked us, hasn’t she? Oh no nonononono…”

 _No, you idiot, we’re on the surface_. She stood up, surveying the field and the blue sky once again. It was beautiful out here, but that beauty now seemed marred by the chatty, broken device she was carrying.

“L-look could you, uh, give me an idea for the layout of the room? I might be able to tell where we are, um, possibly, though I—I can’t see it either way. Oh, this is difficult… There has to be something! You at least have your portal device, don’t you? If you do, we might stand a chance of getting out of here.”

With a scowl, she rapped her knuckles a few times against his casing.

“ _AH—_! What was—was that you? What was that for? Are you—ooooh, are you trying to tell me something?” He tilted in his casing. “Well, uh, I-I know you’re usually the silent type, lady, but it might help if you could, er, _speak up_ now, s-since I can’t see you—can’t see your face or your motions or anything, so I uh, don’t have a whole lot to work with here. So now would be a great time to voice—er—well, _anything_.”

…Did he really think she was capable of speech at this point? It was true that even if she could talk, she wouldn’t let GLaDOS hear a fragment of a word. But here they were out of GLaDOS’s hearing, and if she could have talked, she would have by this point. Surely he would realize that—

_SLAM!_

“AAAAAH! What was that?! Sh-she’s after us, isn’t she?!” He began squirming again, his blind optic swinging this way and that. “R-run for it, mate, get us out of here!”

Chell wrapped her other hand around his lower handle in an attempt to get a better grip on him, but it was so hard when he was squirming and panicking like this, and darn it, it _hurt_. GLaDOS must have done something to help her because she was surely worse than this before she’d blacked out, but even so, she still wasn’t in the greatest shape at the moment, and if he kept struggling like this, he was going to wind up breaking one of her fingers or something.

“Wh-why aren’t you running? Can’t feel you doing that, no, can’t hear your feet poundin’ against the catwalk—since that makes a lot of noise and all, and there’s not a lot of noise now, so that’s definitely _not_ what you’re doing—what, do you want us to get captured by her all over again?! C’mon, lady, _get out of—_ ”

His sentence broke off into a yelp when she finally let go of one of his handles and struck him across the casing. She was rewarded with sharp stinging feeling in her palm, but it was worth it to finally get him to _shut up_ and stop squirming.

At least for a few seconds.

“…Oh,” he said in a much quieter voice. He suddenly felt a little heavier as he slumped in his casing, and she grabbed his other handle again. “All right, then, I-I’m sure you know what’s best… I-I was just trying to make sure we wouldn’t get captured, again, is all. Sort-of hard to do when you’re j-just a blind core, but I tried. Just… be careful, all right…?”

Somewhere within her chest she felt a pang of sympathy for him, but, darn it, he should have been able to tell that they were _outside_ and not in some other part of the facility… shouldn’t he?

Chell walked back to the edge of the wheat field again, looking it over. On a sudden impulse, she walked into the plants and stooped down, moving Wheatley around through the stalks.

“Ah! What’s that?” he cried, swiveling his optic around uselessly until a blade of wheat got stuck in it. “ _Ow_! That hurts—!”

Frowning, she pushed the stalk out of the way and continued to move him around as he blinked, apparently trying to figure out just what she was doing.

“Th-this stuff is a bit—ticklish, isn’t it? It’s not wires, though, but what…?” It took him a few moments, but slowly his optic widened. “This is—this is a sort of _plant_ , isn’t it? But I thought those were gone from the facility!”

She heaved a sigh of relief, and pulled him away again as she continued walking through the wheat field.

“But if there aren’t plants in the facility anymore, then… are we…?”

 _About time_.

And once again, the core went quiet for a while, and Chell tried to forget the fact that she was carrying him as she took in the fresh smell of the plants, the sunlight warming her skin…

But that peace would only last for so long with someone like Wheatley around. “Well… I-I just wanted to say, lady, that… I’m sorry. Sincerely sorry—i-it was rather terrible, what I did back there…”

She switched him to one hand again as she used her other to rub her forehead. _Not this again_. He was only saying this because he had nothing anymore—he was completely under her control, so of course he’d want to get on her good side again so she wouldn’t try to get revenge or something. So she ignored him as he continued going on and on about how sorry he was, how he was wrong, she was right, he would never do it again—how would that even be possible, anyway?—and how it would be nice if she could forgive him…

By the time they finally crossed the wheat field and he _still_ hadn’t shut up, she decided she’d had about enough of this.

“…a-and that testing, yeah, you have to understand that there was this Itch and it wouldn’t go away, and I—I didn’t really _mean_ to boss you around, and—what?”

She placed her hand over the lower part of his faceplate, and held it there.

“Wh-what is it? Do you see something? Well, no, of course you see something—always seeing things, with those two working eyes… Or… is there something on my face? Is… wait—this is where you humans usually have your mouths, isn’t it? I haven’t got one, though; got a vocal processor, with some speakers, inside my—well, the point is I don’t have a mouth, so there’s nothing to cov—oh. … _Oh._ ” He blinked slowly, then kept his eye shields narrow in an expression that looked like a mix between sorrow, embarrassment, and disappointment. “O-okay, then. I guess… I guess I’ll keep quiet.”

Chell breathed out a sigh, nodding, and continued on her way. Maybe now she would get some peace and quiet.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before he started up again.

“I-I really was serious about that, though, being sorry and all…”

This was going to be a long trip.


	2. Separate

Being unable to see was more difficult than Wheatley had ever imagined. Back when they were in the facility, he could read the lady’s body language and expressions to some extent, but out here, in this blank void… there was nothing. He had nothing to go off of, other than the sounds—and of course, she didn’t make any. Or well, no talking anyway. Sometimes there were occasions when she would put her hand on the bottom of his faceplate, and he’d learned that that meant “be quiet,” but otherwise? Nothing.

He wasn’t even sure she had accepted his apology or not. At one point he’d outright asked if she accepted his apology—to nod her head yes, or shake her head no. He’d heard a sound of movement after that, but he wasn’t sure it was a nod or a shake of her head, so he’d went ahead and assumed it was a nod, which was good, because after talking for several hours nearly non-stop, he’d run out of ways to say “I’m sorry.”

“Good to know we’re on good terms then, lady,” he said, giving her a smile—or he hoped he was giving _her_ a smile, anyway. For all he knew, she could be carrying him upside-down and he was grinning at the ground. He’d look like a proper idiot then, but he simply hoped for the best. Yes, that seemed the best way to tackle this situation. “I-I really am glad you accepted my apology—takes a load off of my mind.”

He heard her footfalls stop for a moment.

“What was that? Are we stopping somewhere?”

There was that sound again—either a shake or a nod of her head, he wasn’t sure. But when he heard her start walking again, he realized it was a shake of her head. Okay. He could… he could probably work with this. Even though the sound of her shaking her head and the sound of her nodding her head sounded exactly the same—or else she’d shaken her head earlier when he’d asked if she accepted his apology. He shuddered at the thought—no, the sounds must be similar.

Speaking of sounds, though, there were a whole lot of them out here, wherever “here” was. He knew he was outside, but that was about it—he didn’t know anything of what this place looked like, or what virtually any of these sounds were. Back there, he might recognize some sounds. There were a few times when he’d gotten lost in dark sections of the facility and hadn’t known to use his flashlight. He’d had to listen to sounds then to help him, and he eventually came to recognize them:

Stale air, adrenal vapor, and neurotoxin made hissing sounds as they moved through vents. Their sounds weren’t different, but he could always tell from either their affects or their looks. Neurotoxin was green, and it made people writhe, gag, and stop moving. Air and adrenal vapor were clear, but he could distinguish between them when humans were around—the adrenal vapor kept them perked up, whereas the air made them tired and sluggish, usually.

Not that any of those things helped him now, and he realized with a stab of worry that if he’d had to identify one of those three things, he wouldn’t be able to—he couldn’t see their color or effects anymore. But then, none of them—aside from the air, which wouldn’t be stale, of course—mattered up here on the surface.

What else was there, anyway? Turrets—they made whirring and beeping noises, and, of course, they talked. He could certainly hear that, but to determine where they were, he would always look for their optics. But now that he couldn’t see that, how was he supposed to tell where things were? Was there a way to determine that through sound?

What else—okay, his own internal components. He made a lot of whirring and squeaking and clanking noises. Even when he wasn’t talking, he was making noises, he reflected with a slight smile—but that really wasn’t going to help him a whole lot at the moment.

He realized that even when he could identify sounds, he still relied more on his vision than anything else.

And a whole lot of bloody good that did him now.

“Hey, um, lady,” he finally said, swiveling his optic to face where he assumed she was, “where are we right now?”

She said nothing, and made no effort to answer him.

“W-well, okay, fair enough, you’re—you’re trying to get somewhere. Okay.” He looked aside nervously, and listened for the noises. Maybe he could learn on his own.

There was the constant _step-step-step_ of her footfalls. He learned that one quickly, at least. It didn’t sound like it did in the facility—in the facility, where all the floors were metal or panel, the sound of her footfalls was more of a _clang-clang-clang_. Here, however, it was a much softer noise. Sometimes it was a crunching noise, sometimes it was a ruffling noise… She must be walking on different surfaces, he realized, but what sort of surfaces, he wasn’t sure.

There were other noises too—a whooshing noise. It was air blowing around. He knew it because he could feel it move through his casing, and it reminded him of the tube that he and the lady had sailed through before landing themselves in her chamber. It… also reminded him of when he’d been sucked out into space for a brief time, right before… He shook himself out of that memory. But that didn’t make sense, anyway. They weren’t in a tube, and they weren’t in space. So what was causing the rush of air that he felt on occasion?

“Hey, lady?” he asked again. “What is that noise?”

She said nothing, but he thought he heard her move differently, perhaps looking down at him.

“Y-you know, that... that _whooshing_ noise, with the air blowin’ around… What is it? What’s causing it?”

No answer.

“Th-that’s… really helpful, you know,” he said, partly in sarcasm and partly in sad disappointment. “ _Real_ helpful…”

Well, maybe he could figure it out later, if she ever did give him a barrage of speech. He remembered saying that sarcastically before, but honestly, he really wished she would speak to him right now.

Turning his thoughts away from the unidentifiable whooshing of air, he tried to focus on other things. There were rustling noises—sometimes they would grow louder, sometimes quieter, but they always sounded from up above. “Well—what about that. What’s that? That rustling noise?” he asked again. “It’s above us. I-I can hear it rustling above us—what is it?”

Once again, the lady did not answer, and he would have drooped his handles in disappointment had she not been holding them.

But then the thought occurred to him—of course! Perhaps the reason she hadn’t been answering him was because she didn’t know the answer! Maybe she wasn’t ignoring him at all—she probably just didn’t want to embarrass herself by admitting that she didn’t know. “Oooh, I see then,” he said with a grin in his unlit optic. “It’s all right, lady, you don’t need to be embarrassed or anything! No need. If you don’t know the answer, that’s perfectly all right! But a simple ‘I don’t know’ would be better than, heh, dead silence, and all. So, if you don’t know the answer to my question, simply say so. Right?”

He thought he heard another soft movement from her, and took it to mean “yes.”

“Great! So…” He strained his aural sensors, trying to catch another sound, and was startled by a soft scraping, followed by a chattering noise. “Wh-what’s that? That noise? Is something else there? Something—something living?”

The lady gave no answer.

“L-like I said, lady, it’s all right if you don’t know, but let me know that, okay? Gotta let me know so I know you’re not, er, completely ignoring me. So can you—”

And finally, the lady did something. That “something” was placing her hand over the lower section of his faceplate.

“…Oh.” Wheatley slumped in his casing. “Oh… okay then. No more talking for now.” He heaved a sigh and glanced aside—or what he assumed was “aside.” For all he knew, he could be staring the lady in the face right now.

But it was so hard—it was hard not to see, because he had to rely on sound, which he didn’t know how to rely on. And it was hard to just listen because he didn’t know what sound was what. It could get quite frustrating, but fortunately his voice could mask those noises… But when he wasn’t supposed to talk, there was nothing to cover all of those unidentifiable sounds.

He felt like he was floating in a dark void with unknown things constantly drifting around him. The things could be something as innocent as a panel or as sinister as a spike plate, and he’d never know, because he couldn’t see.

And he never would.

The realization hit him a lot harder than it should have at this point—but earlier, he’d been too busy panicking over what _she_ was doing to be dwelling too much on his blindness. But now they were out of Aperture, and while they were away from _her_ , they were also away from anything that could possibly fix him.

He remembered the engineers that had fixed him up after he’d been detached from _her_ —they had tons of things to replace broken or damaged personality construct components. Core optics, however, were slightly different—as each one was unique, it was a bit harder to create multiple optics for a single core. But they did have default, generic optics (patterned like the Aperture logo) to fit into blinded cores until a true replacement optic was created. Those temporary replacement optics certainly weren’t as good looking as his own bright blue optic (a devilishly handsome optic, he might add), but they’d certainly be better than his being blind for the rest of his life.

His idea formulated, Wheatley cleared his throat. “Lady,” he began, “I know this sounds rather sudden—and well, it is, just came up with this idea now—but how about we turn back?”

The lady stopped.

“Crazy, I know! But hear me out. If we can sneak back into the facility and into the engineers’ labs, we could snag a replacement optic for me! They had tons of the things, I remember, and surely there’s a few that still work.”

She did not respond, and he began to grow nervous.

“Okay, look, it’s really not so bad. I’m not asking you to go through testing, jumping through hoops, er, portals, and all—just need to grab me one of those optics. Don’t even need to stay in there to replace it! You can do that later, after we’ve gotten out again.”

He felt her grip tighten over his handles, and her hands began to shake. That was not a good sign.

“Okay, you know what, I don’t blame you! I wouldn’t want to do it either. Bloody frightening place, the facility is. But, if we _do_ do it—if we do go back there, then we can grab that optic, and then you can fix me, and I won’t be blind anymore! Perfect! Not only would I be able to easily guide you back out of the facility—should you decide to fix me while we’re there—but I could help you around out here! …Somehow! I’ll admit I’ve got absolutely no clue as to the stuff that’s out here, but, hey, I could learn, right? I’d be your seeing-eye-core! …Wait, no, that’s not right, you can already see. But, um. I could help you somehow! And—and plus, you’re my friend, right? You’d do this for a friend.”

He wasn’t sure if her hands were still shaking or if he was trembling.

“L-look the point is, I-I would _really_ like to be able to see again. Being blind for the rest of my life does not exactly sound like a dream, okay? I-in fact, it sounds, if I’m completely honest, like a nightmare. Like a never-bloody-ending nightmare because I can’t see a thing anymore and I know jack all about using my hearing to get around—” He twitched, shuddered, and forced himself to calm down a little. “So your choices are this: go back to the facility and get me a new optic, or… let your best friend be blind for the rest of his life. So… what’s it gonna be?”

The lady started walking again, her pace quickening.

“Oh, what’s that? Did you—have you turned around? That would be brilliant! Turning around, heading back to the ol’ facility, braving _her_ just to help m—”

If Wheatley had had a stomach, he probably would have felt like he’d lost it as he plummeted down to the ground and smacked against some soft surface. “AGH—! Ow… oh that hurt, what was that?” he whimpered, shattered optic contracting and swiveling this way and that. “What happened?” He felt something shift beside him, and tried to turn his optic in that direction. “Aaagh! What’s that? I-is that you, lady? Please tell me that’s you…!”

He felt a hand on the lower part of his faceplate again, and blinked. Okay, it was her, and she wanted him to be quiet again. …Well, okay, maybe she needed to figure out how to get back to the facility. He had assumed she’d been traveling in a straight line, but maybe that wasn’t the case. So that meant the case could very well be that she was, at this moment, plotting a course back to the facility in order to get him a new optic.

Wheatley was going to work off of the assumption that that was the correct assumption, because the only other option would be…

Nope! Nope, that wasn’t it at all, because the lady wouldn’t let him stay blind for the rest of his life, would she? Of course not! Haha! No, he had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

He tried to keep a smile as he waited for the lady to plot her course. But, as the minutes ticked on, he gradually became aware of the sound of soft breathing beside him. He had heard her breathing before, but it usually wasn’t as soft and slow like this. The only time humans breathed like this was when…

…Oh.

So… she wasn’t plotting a course back to the facility. But—but that was okay, because she was tired and just needed to rest up a bit, and, come daylight, would turn right around and carry him back there, and get him his new optic, and everything would be just _fine_.

That was what was going to happen.

…Yes, that was what was going to happen.

Maybe if he repeated it enough times in his mind, it would be true.

 

* * *

 

Chell blinked in the early morning sunlight, and breathed in a deep breath of fresh, unfiltered air. It was her reminder that everything that had happened yesterday was not a dream—that, yes, she really was out of _that place_ for good, and she would never have to go back.

Smiling a genuine smile, she stretched her limbs—

—and jerked in surprise when the toe of her boot lightly tapped against something metal.

Pushing herself up on her arm, she spotted a core lying on the ground a few feet off. His ugly, shattered optic was hidden beneath a pair of metal eye shields, giving the illusion of sleep. She was pretty sure robots didn’t need to sleep, but he could be in some kind of sleep mode.

Slowly Chell rose from her spot beneath the tree she’d been sleeping under, carefully brushing the dirt off of her clothing and keeping an eye on the core all the while. He never stirred—maybe he was in sleep mode.

She still couldn’t believe the things he’d been suggesting yesterday. Apparently he still didn’t get the fact that she couldn’t talk, and used that as an excuse to assume she agreed with everything he said. No, she didn’t forgive him after those pitiful, annoying apologies, no, she wasn’t his friend, and _no_ , she wasn’t going to head back into the place she’d fought so hard to escape just to get some replacement optic for the stupid robot that had betrayed her.

Chell took a few steps away from him, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe she’d taken him with her—carried that idiot all this way. Was she supposed to take him to whatever settlement she found and take care of him? That was ridiculous. She was done with Aperture, and she wanted no part of it, not even ownership of one of its worthless robots. But unfortunately she was stuck with this core, because…

…No, she wasn’t.

Her eyes widened as realization dawned upon her: She wasn’t stuck with Wheatley at all. She’d only taken the core from Aperture so GLaDOS couldn’t have the satisfaction of exacting some cruel revenge on him. They were well out of range of Aperture now—she’d barely stopped walking since she’d started, and had only fully stopped when she was too tired to walk anymore—and there was no reason for her to carry the core with her any longer. GLaDOS wouldn’t find him here.

She could leave him behind.

Yet, the idea still didn’t feel completely right. Wheatley was helpless, even more so now that he could no longer see. If she left him, he couldn’t just get up and go his own way. He had no means of moving—no means of seeking shelter from the elements. If it rained, he would probably short circuit.

But then, this was the core that had betrayed her. This was the core that had promised to get her out of Aperture, and then spat on that promise and turned on her. This was the core that had forced her through test after test so he could get some disgusting pleasure out of the solutions. This was the core that had blasted her through a metal gate and then yelled at her for not dying.

Why did he deserve any of her pity?

Before she could question her actions, Chell turned around, walking quietly and purposefully away from the blinded, sleeping core. Sorry or not, he was part of Aperture—a part of Aperture that had betrayed her, and a part of Aperture that she was not going to take with her.

 

* * *

 

Wheatley was starting to dislike this outside world.

It was noisy, but it was a different kind of noisy than the facility. The facility was full of loads of noises—hissing and whooshing pneumatics, rattling bullets, creaking metal, and so on. It was comfortably inorganic. If he wanted to, he could easily drift off into sleep mode listening to those familiar noises.

But outside? The noises were so different and foreign and strange and… what was the opposite of inorganic… not-inorganic? Non-inorganic? … _Organic_? Ugh. Some of the noises sounded as though they came from living things, which was an alarming thought. There were creaking noises, but they weren’t the kind that came from rusty metal joints, he knew that much. There were also noises that he did recognize, such as the cawing of… _birds_. He shuddered at the thought. Alongside those, there were plenty of other noises he simply could not identify.

But, as the lady had slept on through these noises, and he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without her, he figured he might as well try to sleep through them. It was better than sitting around all day—all night?—listening to them. So he’d tried to shut himself down into his power-conserving sleep mode, waiting for the lady to wake up, pick him up, and begin their trek back. It wasn’t so easy, since the strange noises all around him were unnerving, to say the least, but he focused on the fact that soon they’d be off to get his eyesight back, and he wouldn’t have to worry about this for too much longer. Soon, he’d be seeing all of these noisy little… noise-makers so he could figure out what in the name of Science was going on.

With that thought to ease his worries, he’d drifted off.

When Wheatley woke up, he blinked a few times, wondering why everything was so dark before he remembered—oh, right, his optic. “Oooh… G’morning, lady. Hope you’re all… um… rested up, and all. We’re—that’s right, we’re heading off to the facility again, aren’t we?” He pulled his lower shield up in a smile, glancing around uselessly. “I’ve gotta say, it’s quite nice of you to do this for me. Brave the ol’ facility again, sneak on by _her_ , and all. Really, can’t say how grateful I am! But then, I _am_ your friend, and all. Of course you’d do this for me.”

No reply, as usual.

“Er, you _are_ awake, aren’t you? Well, yes, of course, you probably are. Don’t hear that soft breathing I was hearing last night—or—whenever it was you’d decided to sleep. Could’ve been the middle of the day, for all I know.” He shifted uncomfortably—the surface beneath him was soft, and tiny bits of dirt were working their way into his casing. This was not in the least bit comfortable, but he shouldn’t complain. “But, right. On to business then. I think, to start with, in case you haven’t figured this out already, we should be heading the opposite way we were heading yesterday. If you were heading forward, go backward—or, well, don’t walk backward, that’d be—er—you wouldn’t be able to tell where you were going. Heh. But go the opposite way—go back! And if you turned right, turn left! And… well, you get the idea. Just memorize that route you took yesterday, and do it backwards!”

He nodded to himself—that seemed the smart thing to do. But then a thought struck him. “Oh, but what if you can’t remember the way back? Oooh… Um. Well, that could be a problem. Well, then, what you could do is look for landmarks. See? I know where the main breaker room is, ‘cause it’s right under _her_ chamber. So if you’re trying to figure out how to get back to the facility, just think… um… Well, I’ve passed that biggish thing over there, and so I should pass it again when going back. Right? Right. …Are you listening to me?”

No response.

“…Okay if you _are_ asleep, I would apologize, except we really should get going pretty soon before you forget the way back. But… no, no, you can’t be asleep, ‘cause, I just said, I can’t hear your breathing all soft and—and come to think of it, I can’t hear your breathing at all, actually. …Oh. Oh _gosh_!” Wheatley’s optic contracted sharply, and he cringed when he felt a piece of the aperture come loose. “Ow… Uh, lady? You know you’re not breathing, right? That’s not good for you! I know what happens to humans when they stop breathing, and it’s not pretty! So uh, you’d better start breathing, okay? Starting… _now_.”

Nothing.

“Oh. Oh nonono! What if she’s already…?” With a frightened twitch, Wheatley wiggled back and forth in his casing until he began to roll, and attempted to roll toward where the lady had been before. The effort caused even more dirt to work its way into his casing, but at least he didn’t find himself rolling into a lifeless corpse. The thought should have made him relax, but it still wasn’t right; why wasn’t the lady there?

“…Lady? Where are you? You’ve—you’ve apparently gotten up before I woke up, that’s plain to see, b-but where did you go?” he stammered, trying to look this way and that. He was stuck on his side at this point, and he tried to wriggle himself upright, only to wind up upside-down. “Agh. Have you—gone off to look for food?” He blinked. “That’s… not a bad idea, actually. Humans need food to keep their energy up. Good plan. But! As soon as you’re done eating, please come back to get me and let’s get on with this.”

He waited for a while, listening, but he never heard any noise of her footfalls rushing toward him, or of her voice’s talking to him—whatever that would sound like. He heard plenty of other noises, of course, and he tried to block those out, not wanting to participate in another roundabout guessing game again.

After what must have surely been at least an hour and still no sign of the lady, Wheatley’s handles drooped. “O-oh,” he said in a small voice. “You’re… you’re not there at all, are you?” He blinked once, twice, and his handles drooped further. “W-well, a bloody lot of good it does me talking to you, i-if you’re… n-not there.”

He tilted in his casing, and wound up rolling onto his side again. “Well, I’ll just… wait here… for you to come back to me.” After a moment, his optic widened. “Come back to me—that’s it! You’ve left for the facility and left me out here so I wouldn’t have to go back in and face _her_! Oh, you’re brilliant, luv! Bloody brilliant! So you’ll be back soon with my new optic. Hah! I knew I could count on you.”

With that thought in mind, Wheatley smiled, resting in the patch of dirt he sat on. Yes, that was surely what the lady was doing. She’d be back soon, and he’d have a new, working optic soon, and everything would be just _fine_.

So as the hours ticked on, he waited for the moment he would hear her footfalls. All the while he talked with himself, trying to pass the time. Yet, as he waited, different worries began to worm their way into his processor.

“What if she can’t find the labs?” he wondered. “Should’ve taken me with her— _I_ know where they are. A-and even if I can’t see right now, I’d still be better help than no help at all, right?”

“What if she got lost?” was another worry that came up after another few hours. “She might not be able to find her way back there—and then, if she turned around to find me again, she might not know how to get back to me, either.” It was a frightening thought, and he tried to push it out of his mind.

A few more hours ticked by. He was losing track. “Okay—but what if she… what if _she_ found her? And… and made her go through more testing?” He shuddered. “Oooh I hope not… that would… that would be bad…”

Worry after worry worked their way through his head like a hellish parade, each one worse than the last. Finally, just when he was beginning to wonder if something terrible had happened to her, and she… she wound up like those humans in the relaxation center, he heard soft footfalls nearby.

All the tension and worry swept out of him like a flood, and he heaved a synthesized sigh of relief. “There you are, lady! You had me worried!” he called as the footfalls grew louder.

The sounds stopped.

“I’m—I’m right here, lady. Right where you left me,” he said, blinking in confusion. “Come on—follow my voice. Right this way.”

To his relief, the sound of footfalls started again.

“There, see?” he said, lower lid pulled up in a smile. “Now, did you find that optic? Aw, I’ll tell ya, I can’t wait to see again! Lookin’ forward to seeing what this outside world looks like. Excited! Gonna be great. So uh, let’s get to that, then! It’ll—It’ll be a bit of work, pulling this old optic out and getting the new one in… and… prob’ly… j-just a bit painful, now that I think of it, but! All worth it in the end, right?”

The footfalls were growing louder, though they were still soft, and Wheatley began to pick up on something strange about them. They were a lot quicker than the lady’s footfalls, even when she was running, and still far too soft for something like those boots she usually wore. Maybe she had found a new, experimental form of shoes? Ones she could move faster in?

“Uh, lady?” he asked, his optic searching. The footfalls were slowing now. “Why’re you walking so strangely?”

The footfalls stopped, and Wheatley could pick up on the sound of breathing. The sound gradually grew louder, and eventually he could feel a warm breath near his casing.

“Um… D-don’t want to be rude, lady, but that’s… rather creepy, to say the lea— _EAAUUGH_!”

Something cold and wet touched him, but as soon as he shrieked, he felt a blast of warm air and heard a snort, followed by the sound of something running—no, _galloping_ —away.

“…That wasn’t the lady, was it?” he murmured, blinking few times. “No… that… that wasn’t her at all.” He tilted in his casing, and his handles slowly drooped. “No, of course it wasn’t her.”

There was something nagging at him—something he’d been suspecting from the beginning, but hadn’t wanted to admit. But, after all this waiting, he was beginning to suspect that it was the truth.

“She’s… she’s _not_ dead,” he said quietly. “She’s not captured, either, or lost… she’s… she’s just not coming back.”

His optic contracted—not in fear, not in worry, but in a dull, empty hopelessness. “No. I’m stuck here. She’s left me behind, and she’s… not coming back.”

And all at once, the emptiness of shock was replaced by a rush of terror, of desperation, as he twisted himself upright and tried to push himself up on his handle, tilting his face up and crying out: “ _LADY_! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! PLEASE! COME BACK! COME BAAAACK! _LADYYY_!”

He went on like that for some time, never stopping—he had no lungs and no need to breathe. He called out on and on, trying through sheer determination to make his voice carry throughout this horrible outside world with its overwhelming noises and feelings and dirt and creatures that he couldn’t even _see_ because he needed her, he needed that lady to get him through this place, he needed her, and he screamed and cried and called until his vocal processor forcibly shut itself down to keep itself from breaking. That would have been troubling in and of itself, but Wheatley was too overwhelmed to process anything else.

So he was left sitting in that dark world, waiting for the lady to come back, because he knew she would. She _had_ to. That was the only hope he had left, and he would cling to it.

 

* * *

 

Chell stopped again, stooping down by the stream to take in a sip of water. It was nice and cool, though not completely clean, but she relished the freedom to simply drink whenever she wanted. Back in Aperture she would have to desperately search for a rain puddle that had leaked in from the surface, or look around for an employee kitchen that wasn’t a total wreck. But when she was going through testing, there was nothing she could do at all but try to ignore her swollen tongue and dry throat.

When she’d first come across the stream, she had drunk deeply, more than relieved to be able to quench the thirst she’d had for far too long. She’d then kept by the stream, following it to wherever it led. She had no real aim at this point other than finding food and shelter, and she was hoping the stream would eventually lead her to a town of some sort.

But it never did. She’d followed it for over a day, and it hadn’t led her to anywhere as of yet. Still, it provided water and occasionally food—she’d managed to catch fish to eat a few times.

Chell remained crouched by the stream, watching for any sign of the aquatic animals. It might be nice to catch a few more to eat, though she knew better than to try to eat too much. She wasn’t about to make herself sick from trying to eat too much after being hungry for so long. Besides, it was nice to just sit by the stream, listening to the gentle sound of the water.

…Or it should have been.

If there was one thing Chell was good at noticing, it was details. She’d had to analyze details for so long during testing, it was simply natural to her. And right now, something seemed off—like she’d missed a cube and a button somewhere along the line.

The sound of the water and the gentle breeze and the rustling of the trees—all representatives of _freedom_ —should have been welcoming, but instead, they felt lacking. It was comforting to know that she was outside, yet she still felt uneasy. But _why_? What was there to be uneasy about? She was out of that place, out in the _real_ world, with nothing inorganic to bother her, no tests, no chattering AIs constantly talking in her ear…

Or was that the problem in the first place?

It struck her, then, the very idea of it. For all that time she’d been thinking about how great it would be to get outside and away from those endlessly-taunting voices, and yet, now that she wasn’t hearing it anymore, it felt unnatural. And there was nothing she could do about it—she couldn’t use her own voice to fill the silence. She _had_ no voice.

Still, she huffed out a sigh, gazing back into the stream. Once she found civilization, her need to hear voices would be satisfied. She could listen to the backdrop of people talking all day— _people_ talking, not AIs.

Nodding to herself, she focused on the water, and tensed at seeing ripples. There was a fish. Crouching, she crawled closer to the stream, and, in one swift movement, snatched the fish out of the water. It had taken a good deal of practice, but she’d gotten better at it. She reached into her pocket, pulling out a jagged rock she’d picked up earlier, and quickly killed the fish.

With some work, she managed to start a fire and cooked her meal over it, letting her mind drift as she turned the fish with the stick she’d stabbed into it.

_What’re you doing? Trying to catch that thing on fire? Bloody strange humans._

She shook her head, frowning. Why was she thinking about _him_? He was gone now—she’d left him behind for a reason. She wasn’t about to bring that traitor back into her life. She wasn’t even really sure she could find the core again anyway, even if she _had_ meant to find him. He was a day or so behind her.

Forcing her thoughts away from the robot, she focused on her meal, waiting until it was cooked just right. Her gaze traced the once-shiny scales, following them around the fins and up to the dead eyes of the fish. They seemed to stare out into nothingness, unseeing.

A memory flashed through her mind—Wheatley opening his eye shields, revealing that ugly, shattered optic, the jagged glass of the lens still clinging to the rim, the aperture broken, blind and unseeing.

She’d left a blind person out in the middle of a forest to fend for himself.

No—a blind _robot_ , not a person.

The fish was about done, and she pulled it away from the fire, waiting for it to cool. Wheatley was an AI, not a human, and she shouldn’t have to concern herself with him. He was annoying, anyway—his constant apologies and questions drove her up the wall. That whooshing noise was wind, of course—what else could it be? The rustling was leaves, the chattering was a squirrel—did he not know anything?

…Then again, he was out of his element. Why should she expect him to know about things out here?

Chell shook her head again and went to bite into the fish, only to jerk back and spit when the meat burnt her tongue. Frowning, she blew over it, trying to make it cool faster. _Stupid core_ , she thought. _Even when he’s not here, he’s distracting._

But still the thought that she had simply left him there, alone, to rust out in the forest, did not sit well with her. She tried to push it out of her mind as she began to eat her meal—there were other things she needed to be thinking about: whether or not she should keep following the stream or if she should take another course, whether she should set up shelter for herself for a while or keep walking until she found civilization… whether she should try to find him again…

As she forced herself to swallow a few more bites, it suddenly occurred to her: GLaDOS would surely be proud of her abandoning a helpless, blind core.

Her stomach churned, and what little she had eaten splattered on the grass.

 

* * *

 

Wheatley kept his handles curled around his frame, waiting for his vocal processor to come back online again. It might take a while, but he couldn’t give up—he had to keep trying. He had to keep calling for the lady, because she _would_ be looking for him. She could pass by him now, and miss him, and he probably wouldn’t notice because _he couldn’t see a thing_.

He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t going to accept the fact that he was probably going to sit out here until it rained and until his internal components were fried. He wasn’t going to accept the fact that his metal frame would probably rust out here and plants would wrap around through him like that bloody huge potato plant he’d seen choking the panel arms. The lady _would_ come back for him and give him a new optic and he could see because that was _exactly_ what was going to happen and he didn’t want to think of any other possibility because he couldn’t stand it.

He didn’t know how long it had been waiting at this point—he didn’t even know how long it had been since he’d realized that the lady had left him. He wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to know, because that might make his case even more hopeless.

There was a slight _click_ in his mind—his vocal processor had come back online. Immediately he took advantage of this, his newly-reactivated voice stuttering and staticking as he croaked out, “L-l-l-l-l- _LADY_! D-don’t-t-t leave me out here! _KRRRTZZz_ plllEEAAAse come back! _I’M SORRY_! I’LL NEVER ASK FOR YOU TO GO BACK TH-TH- _THERE_ AGAIN! I D-DON’T CARE I-IF… I… I… e-ever… s-see again…! J-just _come back_! _Please_!”

He went on like that for a while, pausing only when his vocal processor began to spark, and that’s when he heard it—footfalls. _It’s the lady!_ he thought, broken optic wide, but then he remembered the other thing he’d encountered—the thing that wasn’t the lady. What if it was that again? What if it was something _else_? He quailed at the thought, the thought of some unknown entity finding him, taking him away, or worse…

The footfalls stopped.

 _No, no—!_ “W-wait, lady? Is—is that you? P-please tell me if it’s you—come back…!”

The footfalls started again as soon as he started talking, and after a moment, the terror came back—what if this wasn’t the lady—it couldn’t possibly be her—the footfalls were coming _closer_ —

“Wait, wait, stop—don’t—don’t—get away—get _away_ —”

Something grabbed his handle.

“NO—NO—NO— _HELP_!”

He felt a hand on the bottom of his faceplate. “AH—what are you—m-my vocal processor’s not _there_ , mate, you can’t make me—shut… up…” Slowly he calmed, a hope welling up within him that he almost didn’t dare to believe it. “L… lady?”

He heard a soft sound—the sound of someone’s head slowly nodding—and felt another hand grip his bottom handle, holding him securely in the person’s—no, the _lady_ ’s grip.

“You…” he gasped, “you came back.”

She nodded.

Wheatley was silent for once—he’d been so consumed with worry and anxiety and hope that the lady would, by some miracle, _return_ , that he hadn’t considered what he would do or say when she actually _did_. So he hung there, held in her secure grip, both human and robot silent and still.

Finally his lower eye shield raised and his broken optic turned in the direction he thought the lady’s face was. “…Thanks.”

There was a soft huff of air that—Wheatley was not entirely sure—could have been a laugh, and the hand let his lower handle, only to come to his faceplate, turning it in the proper direction. It then patted the side of his hull twice— _You’re welcome_.


	3. Restore

“…and honestly, I have no idea what it was, went about _breathing_ on me for a while—creepy—and then it touched me with something _wet_ , and I yelled of course—why wouldn’t I honestly—and it ran off, and I thought…”

It had been the third time he’d gone over the story of his encounter with the deer, but Chell didn’t care. She had turned out his speech until it was background noise, and kept walking.

While she couldn’t fully say she was _glad_ to have him back, she could at least say she had a clear conscience. But Wheatley was still nothing more than an unseeing, chattering ball of dead weight, and she could not totally bring herself to forgive him.

Though she had to admit, he’d at least somewhat paid, having been blinded and sitting in the dirt for two days.

Still, he had proven himself of no use to her other than providing background noise and a way to build upper body strength. Otherwise, he slowed her down, annoyed her, and wore her out. She was beginning to think that, as soon as she found civilization, she might pawn him off to someone who would take care of him. As much as he annoyed her, the idea of letting someone else dismantle him left a bad taste in her mouth.

Speaking of, she had finally come close to a stream again, and paused to take a drink. Setting Wheatley down, she stooped to scoop up some water.

It was a few moments before she realized that the core had gone silent, and she looked down at him.

“Did… did you hear me?” he stammered.

She continued to stare, waiting for him to go on.

“I was just—just asking what that noise was.”

 _As always_. Chell shrugged helplessly before going back to drinking.

“…W-would it _kill_ you to bloody answer me for once?!”

She struck her hand against the surface of the water and glared back at him. To her surprise, his blank optic had a look of more hurt than anger.

“Lady, you—do you even—w-well you _must_ c-care, I mean, you came _back_ for me, but…” He gave a frustrated sigh, his eye shields narrowing and his broken aperture contracting as he looked around, trying in vain to just… “I—I can’t _see,_ lady. I don’t even know where I am, where _you_ are, and, and you can’t even bother to… tell me.” His optic dropped downward in defeat.

Part of Chell felt bad as she listened but the other was just as frustrated as he was. Didn’t he know—couldn’t he have figured out at this point that she _could not talk_?

Suddenly it struck her—if he had, would he be this _hurt_?

Wheatley’s optic turned up, staring sightlessly over her shoulder for a few seconds before dropping again.

Chell sat back, pressing her knuckles into her forehead as she thought. She had only the faintest memories of communicating in sign language as a child, but that would do nothing for a blind robot anyway. But… Wheatley’s sense of touch seemed to work well enough. Maybe…

Leaning forward, she tapped the side of the core’s hull to get his attention. “What’s…?” He looked up past her shoulder again.

Chell bit her knuckle for a moment, thinking, before reaching out and tracing the letter “I” on his side.

“What’re you pokin’ at me for?” he asked, optic narrowing a little.

She heaved a sigh, tracing the letter again.

“What’re you trying to—” He paused for a moment, processor whirring, and blinked. “‘I.’ That’s—that’s a letter. Is that it?”

She smiled, nodding, but, on second thought, placed her hand on the side of his faceplate and nodded it up and down.

“Ah—what’s—…oh. Yes? Are—are you saying yes?”

She repeated the action.

“Okay! Well, that’s something at least.” He tilted in his casing. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just—y’know—speak?”

 _Back to square one_. Chell rubbed her hand across her face before tracing “I” into his hull again.

“There’s that ‘I’ again. What’s that letter supposed to mean? Honestly, lady, I don’t see why… wait.” His processor whirred again, and Chell drew in her breath. “‘I’… you mean… _you_?”

Chell released her breath and nodded his faceplate.

“All right, you… you what? Look—how about you just spit it out? Whole lot easier than all of this.”

Oh _goodness_ , if it took him this long to figure out what one little letter meant, it would take her an hour to communicate three words. She needed a better way to speak to him. If she could just…

Biting her lip and hoping by some miracle he would understand, Chell traced the letter over him again. Before he could speak, she placed her palm over the lower part of his faceplate.

“B-but I haven’t even _said_ anything, lady! Why would you… you… shut up… you…” His optic slowly widened. “You… can’t speak.”

Chell released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and pressed her hand against his faceplate, nodding it up and down. _Yes._

“You can’t… you can’t speak,” he repeated. By the sounds his processor was making, he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this. “But why couldn’t you have just—…well, no, you can’t _speak_ , of course you couldn’t tell me… That’s…” His optic turned away. “Well that’s… that’s a great lot for us, then, innit? Got a human who can’t speak, and a robot who c-can’t… can’t see. Bloody fantastic.”

For once, Chell shared the core’s sentiments. A mute human and a blind robot did not make the best pair… but at least now, Wheatley understood her position.

Not that it made him feel any better. His whole frame seemed to wilt, his optic turning downward, his upper eye shield drooping, and his handles going limp. “So…” His voice had gone quiet. “I can’t see, and… and you can’t even _tell_ me what I can’t see.”

Something stirred within her. It wasn’t sympathy for him, or even _any_ feeling directed toward him. Those two words—“you can’t”—said more to her than the core realized. It brought up that old, familiar feeling within her—that feeling she got whenever she was presented with some new test, some new hurdle—that feeling, when someone said or something implied, “you can’t,” something within her said, “yes, I can.”

It was a challenge.

Without hesitating, Chell traced the letter “U” into Wheatley’s hull, followed by “I”—you and I— _we_ —and finally gripped his lower handle, squeezing it tightly.

 _We can do this._

Slowly Wheatley’s broken optic turned upward, and he stared unseeingly at her through narrowed eye shields, blinking a few times. “I… I’m not fully sure what you’re tryin’ to get at—” Chell heaved a sigh “—but… but it sounds—it _feels_ like… you have a plan.”

 _Close enough_. She placed her hand on his faceplate, and nodded it.

 

* * *

 

 _W-I-N-D_.

“W… w… wind. Wind—wind what up? Is it—is it the sound of something winding?” He tilted his faceplate. “That’s funny, I wouldn’t think—”

The lady shook his faceplate. _No._

“No, not winding, okay. W-I-N-D. Wi-i-i-i… _wind_. Wind—that’s the air blowin’ ‘round. Innit?”

 _Yes_.

“Ah! That’s one mystery solved. That brings us to… two. Two things we’ve figured out so far today.” Not bad, honestly. Better than knowing _nothing_ about the weird “outside” place. He had to admit, the lady’s methods of explaining things—touching his hull in certain ways, allowing him to feel whatever he was asking about, sometimes spelling out words as a last resort—could be confusing sometimes, but it gave him things to think about. It was almost like a game—a “what the bloody heck is this lady trying to say” game. It was a difficult game, to be sure, but it kept them both occupied as they traveled to… wherever they were going. Somewhere for the lady to stay, possibly, so she wouldn’t have to walk around so much.

  _Splash._

“Water—that’s water,” Wheatley said, and she quickly nodded his faceplate in reply. He listened for a moment, hearing the splashing noises continuing, followed by the sound of something _wriggling_ —“What _is_ that?”

The foreign noises continued, but over them, he heard the familiar sound of a huff of air—the lady was laughing, so evidently it was nothing to worry about. Still, the curiosity was killing him. He leaned in closer to the noise, optic narrowing, and—

Something wet and slimy touched his hull.

“EEEEUGH!” he cried, shuddering in revulsion. “What—I don’t _want_ to know what that is!”

The lady laughed again and traced on his hull: _F-I-S-H._ She then traced a funny oval-y shape for him. 

It took him a second to process the letters. “F… fish. I thought—” Some vague memory of asking Aperture scientists about their lunches nagged at him. “That’s something you _eat_!”

_Yes._

“Wait, so you’re really going to—” He shut his optic. This world was _strange_.

They soon left the river, after the lady had eaten, and were on their way again. Wheatley listened to the noises around him, relieved that he could identify most of them now: the whooshing was wind, the rustling was leaves in trees, the chattering and chirping were squirrels and birds… He wasn’t floating in an empty, noisy void anymore—he had an idea, a picture of the things that surrounded him.

To an extent.

“Lady, I know that sound there—those are trees—but… but I’ve never seen a tree before.” He’d _felt_ them—the lady had held him up to feel the branches and leaves—but the mental image was still incomplete. “What… color are they?” 

The lady stopped for a moment, evidently having to think about this. She let go of his lower handle and touched his side, then traced a circle—an “o.” No, she put a line in the center. That wasn’t a letter, was it? He ran through the alphabet once or twice in his mind, but it didn’t match up with anything. A circle with a line in the center… Why did that seem famili—“ _Rick_?” he sputtered, his optic shields narrowing in a skeptical look. “The bloody _Adventure Core_? Ugh, he was an annoying one, always lookin’ around with that smug green optic. …Green… Wait, so the trees…”

_Yes._

“The trees are green like Rick’s… ugh. Y’know, I’ve just decided that I _don’t_ like trees. They could stand to be a better color.”

The lady grabbed his lower handle again and held him up, allowing him to feel something both soft and scratchy—the leaves and branches, right. She then brushed his casing against something rough—the trunk of the tree. “Yeah, I know, lady,” he grumbled.

She traced Rick’s bloody ugly optic into his side again, then crossed it out. “Hm. You don’t like him either? Or—wait, it’s _not_ green. The trunk isn’t green?”

 _Yes_.

Well, that was a relief—the whole tree wasn’t some awful color. “So what color _is_ it?”

She traced a strange, lumpy shape into his side—a shape that took a few repeats for him to picture. It was some lumpy, oval shape with some large-ish circle in the middle. Lumpy… “…A potato?”

 _Yes_.

“The tree trunk is a potato? Wait—no—bloody ridiculous… Potato… potatoes are brown. So the tree is green and brown?”

 _Yes_. 

Wheatley brightened. “Well! That’s not so bad, then.”

They went on for a while like that as they traveled, the lady explaining colors using images he recognized. Wheat was yellow—like _her_ optic—and he was _so_ sure that with its similarity to his name, it would have been blue. Squirrels were brown like potatoes, wind had no color…

“And… the sky?”

There was a pause before he felt her gently touch the rim of his optic. _Blue_ … like… like his optic was. Had been. Not anymore.

“Well…” He glanced aside for a moment before turning back in her general direction and managing a smile. “It’s a nice color.”

 

* * *

 

They’d been traveling for too long. Wheatley was fine, of course—he required no food or sleep, and her little challenge was keeping the both of them occupied. He didn’t seem so depressed anymore, and Chell wished she could say the same for herself.

She was _glad_ she was out of Aperture—she _was_ —she had fought for her freedom again and again and had finally won it… but she was still used to Aperture. She was used to the cold walls, the adrenal vapor, the sense of danger… but most of all, she was used to the numbers—the numbers that told her how far she was in the track, the end goals clearly in sight…

Here, there was none of that. No numbers, no clearly laid-out tracks, no _goal_. She was searching for civilization, yes, but she had no idea how close she was to that goal. She felt like they’d been wandering through these fields and forests for ages, and for all she knew, they were getting farther _away_ from their goal.

She was worn out. This endless travel was getting to her, and she was stopping more and more often.

At least Wheatley distracted her. He was good for that, if nothing else. But she didn’t know how long she could go on carrying him like this. But, she argued, at least that was all she had to do for him—he didn’t need to share her food and water. And without him and his questions—challenges for her to meet—she would be feeling a whole lot worse.

Though sometimes he did wear on her nerves.

“Lady! _LADY_!”

It was the middle of the night, and she’d awoken to his cries and his jabbing her in the side with his handle.

“Lady, wh-what _is_ that?”

 _Any_ time he could have asked that question, and he decided to ask it in _the middle of the night_? Her anger spiked until she noticed just how terrified he was.

Something splashed on her face.

“A-are you there? What _is_ that?”

Chell looked upward, eyes widening in horror. She dove for Wheatley, frantically tracing into his side— _rain_ —before struggling to rip off the top of her jumpsuit.

 

* * *

 

_CRASH._

“ _AAAGH_! No—no—that’s just thunder—no need to be scared! Just thunder! …L- _lady_?”

In spite of his reassurances, his voice remained high-pitched and panicked, and Chell could hardly blame him. She’d managed to cut off the top of her jumpsuit with a sharp rock and wrapped it as tightly around Wheatley as possible. She’d then set him on her lap and wrapped her own body around him as she sat in the mud beneath a tree, its branches barely providing any shelter. They’d sat like that for hours, and the thunder was only growing louder.

 _It’s okay_ , she tried to assure him, squeezing one of his handles as best as she could beneath the folds.

“R-right, just checking!” he cried, barely sounding any calmer.

Immediately there was another flash, followed by a deafening crack of thunder, causing him to yell again and jump closer to her. The action added what felt like another bruise to her side, and she winced, looking up. Suddenly she drew in a breath to see a tree falling in the distance—the sound of its fall roared over the wind and rain, never seeming to stop, going on and on until its entire form hit the ground.

The lightning had struck it, and the storm was getting closer.

They couldn’t stay here, it wasn’t safe—

Before she could question herself, she struggled to her feet, keeping Wheatley’s bundled form cradled in her arms, and broke into a run. She could barely hear his voice over the rush of the storm and over the prayer in her own mind that Aperture had made its jumpsuits waterproof. But even that was drowned out by the _explosion_ behind her, and she gave a silent cry as she felt the bark strike her in the back. And there was that same noise again—that _roar_ as the tree that had given them temporary shelter crashed to the ground.

But she kept running—kept going, not stopping until she found herself beneath the branches of an even larger tree. It was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing into the mud. But she lowered herself slowly, carefully to her knees, keeping a firm grip on Wheatley.

Who was not talking.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she shook him, trying to elicit some response from him before finally striking him with her open palm.

“OW—! Wh-what was that for? I-I said I would be quiet so that big ol’ roaring monster wouldn’t hear us!”

Chell began laughing, a huffing, silent laugh that gave way to racking coughs.


	4. Repair

It felt like ages before the storm passed. Wheatley wasn’t quite sure what the lady had done to him, but whatever it was, it kept the water off. Water, from the _sky_ —this place could be so awful sometimes. Well, _most_ of the time, actually.

But they’d made it through the night, and the lady had begun moving again as soon as the rain had stopped. However, this time she didn’t go on playing her game with him, trying different ways to explain different noises to him. Instead, she seemed to be making all sorts of funny noises—some loud noise that had startled him badly at first, and another noise that reminded him of when the scientists were choking from the neurotoxin. When he’d asked what was going on, she’d simply squeezed his handle to let him know she was all right, but that didn’t really explain why she was making those noises, or why she was making them so _often_. He thought at first that she enjoyed making the noises—fair enough, since there were few other noises that she _could_ make, but sometimes the noises got a bit… painful-sounding.

She was also shivering. Quite a bit, actually. She’d taken off whatever she’d covered him in after a while (which was nicer—made it easier for him to move his handles) and put it on herself, but it didn’t really stop the shivering. Or her uneven breathing. He was pretty sure humans’ breathing was supposed to be fairly even, but he _could_ be wrong.

In any case, she was still moving forward—she seemed even _more_ determined to travel, in fact—so he didn’t let it bother him. He didn’t understand it, but so long as the lady didn’t abandon him, he wasn’t going to worry about it. Though he _did_ wish she would communicate with him more. Maybe he would have to fill that gap in himself.

“Still, it was crazy, wasn’t it? All those big ol’ explosions, and—and that _roaring_ —sounded like we were being chased by a bloody _monster_ , mate! I mean, I know it’s not really a monster—knew that the whole time—but that’s what it sounded like. And you started running—honestly, thought we were being chased by something! And then there was that rain everywhere—ugh, what a mess. But we made it through! Yes, definitely made it… made it out.” It wasn’t the first time he’d talked with her about that night, or the second, or third, or… or maybe even the seventh, but he felt he had to keep talking due to the lack of communication on her part, and since she wasn’t telling him to shut up, he felt no reason to keep quiet.

The lady stopped again, and broke off into another fit of coughing. He paused in his narration then—she wouldn’t be able to hear him over those awful-sounding coughs—waiting patiently for her to stop. When the rough sounds finally gave way to shaky breathing, he turned his blind optic in her direction. “Dunno why you wanna keep doing that, lady. Doesn’t exactly sound stellar on your—on your vocal processor—er—throat? Yes, throat. Doesn’t sound like you’re helpin’ your throat much. You need that. Pretty sure.”

She gave a shaky laugh, patting him on the side, and kept walking.

“There you go! Much better, lady, doin’ much better. Now, keep walking! To… somewhere! Wherever you wanna go. Left, right, doesn’t matter. Entirely up to you!” he said, giving her a bright a smile as he could manage with an unlit optic. “Though uh, might be nice if you could talk to me again, y’know?”

She patted his hull again, but made no new motions other than grabbing his lower handle to carry him more easily.

Wheatley tried to content himself with that, and resumed his usual rambling about everything and nothing, trying to identify sounds as they went by. Normally the lady would at least say whether he was correct or not, but she wasn’t even doing that, now. But he continued to talk anyway, going on for a while until he noticed that he couldn’t hear the lady’s footfalls anymore. She wasn’t coughing, but she was breathing heavily.

“Oi, what’s goin’ on?” he asked. “It’s not like you to be so quiet. …Well actually, no, it _is_ —you’ve never, uh, really been one to make noises. But I mean, you’re not even trying to… to say anything to me, and now you’re not even walking! If I didn’t know better, lady, I’d think you were mad at me. …Oh. _Oh._ You… you _are_ mad at me, aren’t you? Was it something I said? Wh-what was it, lady? Why’re you—”

He felt her hand on his faceplate, and she shook it. _No._

“Oh, you’re not mad? Well, that’s a relief.” However, he couldn’t help but notice that something was odd about the way her hand—or, well, _both_ of her hands—felt. They were rather… warm—not that they weren’t _always_ quite warm compared to the cold metal of his casing—but warmer than normal, and a lot shakier than they were before. He might have shrugged it off had the lady not continued to just _stand there_. “…Lady, are you all right?”

He felt a tremor, and she quickly shook his faceplate again before suddenly setting him on the ground. “ _OI_! What’re you doing? What’s happening out there?” he called, optic narrowing and what was left of his aperture contracting. With a jolt, he realized what she’d just told him— _no_. No, she was _not_ all right. “…L- _lady_?”

The lady did not respond, and he heard her scramble away from him.

“Lady!” he cried, flailing his handles to struggle closer. “Where’re you going? D-don’t leave me…!”

He heard her make a strange, heaving sound, followed by something _splatting_.

“Wh—what was that?” he whimpered, cringing away. “I—I don’t know that sound…” But she followed it up with coughing and spitting—he was at least familiar with _those_ sounds. “Lady, what’s going on?”

The strange sounds resumed for a few moments before he heard her go back to breathing heavily and spitting occasionally. Trying in vain to swing his optic in her direction, he attempted to fix her with a glare. “Wha’d’you think you were _doing_ , lady, makin’ awful sounds like that? Honestly, you’d think you were—”

Suddenly he felt her hand on his upper handle, while another hand shakily traced a word into his casing: _S-I-C-K_.

“… _Oh_ ,” he said quietly, drawing his handles in close to his frame. While he didn’t know as much about humans as he would have liked, he knew one thing: sickness was never good.

Slowly she picked him up, scooping him into her lap and wrapping her body around him, as she had on the night of the rainstorm.

The action did not ease his mind. No, sickness was _never_ good for a human, but did it mean that the lady… wouldn’t be able to travel? What if they got caught in another rainstorm? What if the water got into his casing? Then they’d both…

“O-okay,” he began, trying to keep his voice even. “Your legs—your legs are still working, right?”

The lady was still for a moment. _Yes._

“Okay, good! You can still move, then—can still walk. So, you’d, uh, better keep doing that. ‘Cause if we just sit here, doin’ nothing, we’re not gonna get anywhere, and you’re just gonna get sicker. I think. And that would… not be a good thing. No, _definitely_ not the—the best option.”

He heard her give a shuddering sigh, and she traced something into his side: _15 min_.

“That’s… that’s a number. One, five. One plus five… seven? Or, er, wait, no—eight. Hah, got it.” He nodded in satisfaction before blinking. “Eight what?” Tilting his face, he waited for her response, but she only gave a brief motion for him to be quiet, and curled around him more tightly. She was uncomfortably warm, but he kept quiet for once, listening to the sound of her shuddering breaths as she held him.

After several minutes, she sat up, taking hold of his handles and shakily rising to her feet.

“Ah, are we moving now?” Wheatley asked, glancing around uselessly. In response, he felt her begin to walk, and he grinned. “Tremendous! Great job, lady, you keep that up, all right? Onward! To… somewhere! Just—just keep moving, and everything will be all right.”

So the lady kept walking, and he continued encouraging her as best as he could. He wished he could see her face—that would give him a much better idea of how she was actually feeling, but at the same time, he was glad that he couldn’t. When the lady was determined to do something, her face showed it, and it could… honestly look just a little terrifying at times. He knew that first hand, after Part Five, when she struggled onto her hands and knees and gave him that _look_ —

He shuddered.

But even though he couldn’t see it, he was certain that was the sort of look she had about her right now, as she marched steadily forward. Or… not-so-steadily. He could feel her steps growing shaky, and some time later she stopped and set him down before making some of those awful sick noises again.

“Hey, that’s not helping you, lady!” he said, optic narrowing in spite of his worry. “Y-you can’t stop to do that. You have to keep moving! You can do this! We—we have to find a place where you can get better.” Not that he knew exactly where that was—he wasn’t a bloody human, so how should he know?—but _she_ should know. And once they got there, she would get better, and they could put this whole mess behind them.

The lady placed her hand on him again and shook his faceplate before covering his optic.

“You… need to go into sleep mode,” he said, trying to remember if that was what she was signing. “Is that right?”

 _Yes_.

“Okay, fair enough. Sleep mode, and, and then, as soon as you’re up again, we keep moving.” A thought struck him, and he gave her a hopeful smile. “Or maybe you can get better when you sleep! That happens sometimes, right?”

She didn’t respond to the question, instead lying on the ground next to him and wrapping her body around his round form. He flinched to find her skin was still warm to the touch, but tried to ignore it. “A-all right, then. Go on, get some sleep, and get better.” He waggled his upper handle, gently patting her on the side. “I’ll keep a look-out, then.”

It wasn’t until she’d drifted off that he realized the utter stupidity of that statement, but he narrowed his optic in determination anyway. “Well, no, not a look-out… but a… listen-out. I’ll… right… g’night, luv.”

While Wheatley never got tired, exactly, he did get dreadfully bored keeping awake all night, but he did it anyway. He listened to every sound—every rustle of leaves, every flutter of wings, every gust of wind—making sure that there was nothing out there that would harm the lady. It felt like ages, though, and he couldn’t keep track of time. Part of him wanted to wake the lady up, but another part of him hoped that, if he let her sleep for as long as she could, she would wake up and be better. But he didn’t know how long that would be—for all he knew, it could be hours from now.

So when he suddenly felt something stir next to him, he yelped in surprise, flailing his handles and squirming in his casing. “AAAGH! Wh-what’s—?!” Something very warm touched his side, and he flinched badly, only to realize what it was. “O-oh! You’re awake!”

However, his relieved grin quickly faded in grim realization: “Er… lady, I thought I said that you would get better when you slept. Why’re you feelin’ _warmer_ than you were earlier?”

She only shivered, pulling him closer to her form. But that didn’t make sense—humans shivered when they were _cold_ , not when they were hot. Why wasn’t she making sense—?!

“Oi, stop that!” he cried, struggling to back away from her, his broken optic contracting partly in anger and partly in worry. “You got no business shivering when you’re all hot like that! You’re still sick—we can’t stay here! Honestly lady you need to take care of yourself, b-because…”

A shiver ran through his casing, but he heard her slowly sit up, and felt her grip on his handles. He twitched at how hot her hands felt, but attempted a smile anyway. “All right, good, keep it up—just gotta stand up now, and keep walking. You can do it. Go on!”

She struggled to her feet, shaking even more than she had before, but finally continued to plod forward.

“Good! Good! Keep going! You’re doing brilliant! Just keep going, and we’ll get there!”

As he cheered her on, he felt something nagging in the back of his processor that something was familiar about this situation. Then he remembered—he’d been leading her on like this before, back when he’d broken her out of the testing chambers. He’d guided her away from GLaDOS’s reach, and continued to guide her throughout the darkened facility and to their destination. Just like old times! Just like old times, except…

…except he couldn’t see where he was leading her.

His encouraging praise stuttered to a halt as he considered their situation: The lady was in danger—a different kind of danger than she had been back then. They weren’t running from anything; they were trying to get… somewhere. He didn’t even know where their destination _was_ , and even if he had, there was no way for him to lead her to it. The lady was sick, and he was—literally—blindly leading her forward to who-knew-where.

But… but he _couldn’t_ just let her stay in one place—she’d only gotten sicker after that night’s rest, and so if she just sat around, without anything to help her, wouldn’t she just keep getting sicker?

As he hung there in silence, he realized that the lady had stopped walking, and he shook himself. “Keep moving, then, keep moving, it’s all right! J-just… j-just gotta keep moving. We’ll find help eventually.”

The lady shivered, and though she continued to walk, Wheatley noticed that her steps were growing more unsteady, and her body was swaying a little.

“What’s going on?” he asked, glancing around out of habit. “L-look I know you’re sick, but—but you can’t walk like that! You have to… to walk as straight as possible! If you keep walking like, like that, you’re going to fall.” He listened for her response, but she only broke into a body-racking coughing fit. Her coughs sounded so dry…

Dry… humans… humans need to drink water, or…

“O-oh gosh, lady, you—you _have_ been drinking water, right?” he stammered, already knowing what the answer was; he hadn’t heard the sound of a stream in a day or so. “Wh-where’s that stream we were at? Can you go back there? D-do you know the way back?”

It was a few moments before she responded. _No._

“W-well, okay, then, change of plans—we’ll look for a place with water. Just, keep going, and—and I’ll guide you where I can hear the water. Okay?”

Yet another few moments before her response: _Yes_.

“Good, then, keep walking, and I’ll listen.” He shut his optic, straining his aural sensors to listen for the rush of water. It might have been useless—the lady could actually _see_ after all, whereas he was blind—but she seemed so dazed he wasn’t sure how much she was actually registering at this point. She could probably stagger on right by some water without seeing it—he had to keep guiding her as best as he could, and he continued rambling vaguely encouraging things at her all the while, especially when she seemed to be slowing down.

“C’mon, you can’t keep doing this, lady, you’re—you’re not doing well. Please, just, just keep going, please…!” He opened his optic again, briefly wondering why he couldn’t see anything and then shaking his faceplate. No, no, he had to concentrate to hear water… But it was difficult over the stress of their situation, over how often the lady was staggering now, and over the noisy chirping birds and rustling leaves and rushing water and—

“ _AH_! There its!” he cried, nearly flailing his handles in surprise. “There—there, to your left! It’s out that way!”

The lady drew in a shaky breath, but followed his frantic instructions. “See? It’s getting louder—just keep going that way, and you’ll find it! And—and once you have something to drink, you’ll be okay! All right? You’re doing great, we’re almost there, keep going…”

Finally the sound of the stream was right by them, and he almost laughed in relief. “There, see? There it i—AH!” He was roughly dropped to the ground, and he winced, but was grateful that the ground here was a bit softer than the floor at the facility. “H-hey, watch it!” he said at first, but quickly shut up when he heard the sounds of splashing—she was finally getting something to drink. “N-nevermind, excellent, good, drink, uh, drink as much water as you can, and… and then you’ll get better… I-I think.”

He listened as the lady gulped down the water from the stream, wincing as she coughed on occasion. But she was finally getting some water, so maybe that would cool her body down, and she would get better, and they would both be okay. He wasn’t quite sure if that was how human bodies worked, but it seemed logical enough.

After a few moments, he heard her pull away from the stream. He was about to start babbling encouragements when he heard her coughing again and—

Wheatley recoiled at the familiar, unpleasant sounds. He wasn’t fully sure, but it sounded like she’d just coughed up all the water she’d drunk. “ _AUGH_! No, lady, don’t do that! Y-you have to keep the water in you! Y-you need to drink the water, s-so you’ll be okay…”

He waited for her to go back to the stream to drink water again, but didn’t hear it. He… he couldn’t hear much of anything other than the rushing water in the stream, come to think of it. “L- _lady_?” he called, his casing trembling uncontrollably. “Y-you _are_ still there, aren’t you? Y-you… j-just gotta get something to drink, and you’ll get better… _Lady_?!”

A shaky hand gently grabbed his lower handle, barely putting any pressure on it. “Okay, so you’re still there, that’s—that’s good,” he said, his voice no calmer. “Now y-you just… have to get back over to the water, and get a drink. G-go on, hurry. You can’t just lie here—the water’s right in front of you! Unless you’re not facing the water and the water’s actually _behind_ you, but—but—lady, please…!”

It was a moment before he noticed that what little grip she’d had on his handle had all but vanished, and, experimentally, he lifted his lower handle. The hand slipped away limply.

The lady was not responding, and Wheatley had the feeling that she had not just gone into sleep mode.

“ _LADY_!” Wheatley cried, struggling to roll closer to her until he felt his round form bump against her side. “Lady, you have to get up!” He pushed against her, trying to somehow nudge her up into a sitting position, but she wasn’t moving at all. While he could still hear her breathing, it was still uneven and shaky. She had… she’d crashed, and she wasn’t going to be waking up out of that any time soon.

Worries plagued the core—there might be another rainstorm soon, or some vicious animal might find them, or… or the lady might not…

No, no, he couldn’t let this happen—she’d come _back_ for him and she’d _talked_ with him and she’d saved him from the rainstorm! She couldn’t just…! He wouldn’t let her, he had to—

“ _HELP_!” he called, raising the volume in his vocal processor as high as it would go. “Is—is anyone there?! _HELP_! _HEEEELLLLLP_!”

Wheatley cut himself off there—he’d learned from the last time he’d tried this, screaming his vocal processor until it forcibly shut itself down when he had been calling for the lady, and he wasn’t going to scream until his vocal processor broke. If he did that, the lady was good as dead. So he waited for who knew how long, waiting for any new sounds to appear, waiting for the lady to wake up, waiting for _something_ until he called out again: “ _HELP_! Someone!”

He went on like that for a long while, crying out as loud as he could, then waiting, calling out, then waiting, unwilling to give up hope that by some miracle, _something_ would help the lady.

Long after he’d lost track of how many times he’d cried out, he heard something—it sounded like…

“Wh-who’s there?” he called, lowering his volume to a normal level, though his voice kept a higher pitch. “Is—is someone there? W-we need help…!”

An unfamiliar masculine voice answered him. “What the heck is—” Immediately it broke off, and the footsteps stopped nearby.

Wheatley had no idea who this man was, but it didn’t matter. “L-look, mate, th-this lady here’s sick—sh-she needs help, please, I-I dunno what to do…” His voice had gone softer, close to a whisper.

He heard the man move closer. “What… _are_ you?”

Something nudged him in the side, and he cried out, “ _STOP_!” and the man pulled back. “I—I’m Wheatley, I’m a core, but nevermind me! The lady is sick, please…!”

The man breathed out quietly, and suddenly he felt the lady shift. His unlit optic would have brightened for a moment if it were not broken, but he quickly realized that the lady had not moved herself, and what hope had sparked within him was chased out by mingled anger and terror. “ _STOP_!” he called again, narrowing his optic and thrashing his handles, nearly striking the lady. “Don’t hurt her! D-don’t you dare! If you hurt her… you’ll… you’ll regret it.”

It wasn’t a threat.

“I won’t,” the man said gently. “There’s a town a couple miles out from here. I can take her to someone who can treat her. Make her better.”

“Y… you could really do that?” He tilted his optic, arranging it into a more hopeful expression.

“Absolutely.” And a rough hand grabbed his upper handle, hoisting him into the air. “Let’s get you two out of here.”

 

* * *

 

The bed was soft, although not nearly as comfortable as she would have hoped, but it was nice to be sleeping in a bed nonetheless. Anything was better than those hard test chamber floors, or the rusty, cold catwalks. While she didn’t open her eyes immediately, she could hear the muffle of voices—some unfamiliar one droning, while another higher-pitched one shouting frantically. She knew that one. It was the core, coming to ask her to leave with him, because the facility was going to…

With a sharp gasp, she sat up, eyes wide, and immediately began blinking in the bright light of the room. Her breathing quickened—no, she couldn’t be back here—she’d gotten _out_ , why was she back in a test chamber, how—

Her memories came back to her in a dense fog, while her vision cleared, showing that wherever she was, it was not the sterile chambers of Aperture, or even the musty hotel room of the extended relaxation vault. It was an old, yellowed room with a few hospital beds, shelves lined with medical instruments and medicines, and two windows, through one of which the sun shone directly onto her bed. She tried to turn and felt a jerk at her left arm, and looked to find an IV attached.

The memories, meanwhile, were still foggy, and showed no sign of clearing. She could remember the storm well enough, but after that, it was all a haze of walking and stumbling and coughing and listening for Wheatley’s voice to keep pulling her forward.

Wheatley…

“…please please please just let me in, she won’t know where she bloody is—heck, _I_ don’t know where I bloody am, just let m—OW, _OW_!”

“Look, we can’t let that thing _in_ there. It’s covered in dirt and probably rust and it won’t be good for that woman to be around it.”

“W-well stop _poking_ at me, at least…! A-and… and at least let me know if she’s all right…”

The voices were coming from outside the door—so Wheatley _was_ still here. How he’d gotten her from the middle of a forest to an inhabited building, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t about to just let them take him away from her. Without any other way to make her presence known, she forced herself to cough loudly, even when the action hurt her throat.

“ _AH_! Did you hear—”

The door opened, and an unfamiliar human in white robes stepped in. “ _Finally_ , you’re awake. Are you feeling all right?”

Given the fact that the last thing she remembered was feeling so sick she could barely think, and given the fact that she actually _could_ think now, she nodded.

“You were sick and severely dehydrated when Erik found you by the stream. You’re lucky he found you when he did—you weren’t going to last much longer.”

So some human just happened across her unconscious form? She gave the human a suspicious look.

The human stared, appearing more concerned by the minute, and she suddenly realized that he was waiting for a response. Quickly she pointed to herself, shook her head, and covered her mouth.

“Oh,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Sorry! Would you—would you like paper and a pencil? I can—”

“ _What’s goin’ on in there_?!” a frantic voice cried from the hallway. “L-let me in, please…!”

Chell glanced toward the door, then back at the human, her brow furrowing.

“That—that’s the machine we found you with,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as the voice continued to cry out desperately. “It hasn’t shut up in _two days_ , and we’ve—”

She held out her left hand, mimicking a writing motion over it with her right, and the man quickly moved over to a table, fetching a pen and pad and bringing it over to her. She accepted it, quickly scrawling out a message and holding it out to him.

The man looked over it, adjusting his glasses as he looked up between her and the paper. “…Look, I don’t think that’s a good idea. That machine is filthy and we’re trying to—”

Chell pulled the notepad away and chucked it at the man’s head. While it didn’t hurt him, he got the message, holding up his hands in defeat and backing away into the hallway. She waited, fists clenched, until he returned, carrying a squirming core into the room.

“PUT ME DOWN PUT ME DOWN WHAT ARE YOU DOING _HELP_!” Wheatley was crying out, and she gave him a serious look before turning that look to the human. He gave her a baffled look, but she simply pointed at a spot on her bed. He held out the core at arm’s length, carefully setting him onto the bed and immediately backing away, as though he expected it to suddenly bite him.

Chell relaxed a fraction before pointing at the man, then at the door.

The man dropped his hands to his sides. “All right, all right,” he sighed, making his way to the door.

Her gaze softened, and she signed a “thank you” to him as he left. Once he was gone, however, she turned to face the core, her brow furrowing again.

“Wh—where am I now? Who’s there?” Wheatley whimpered, his broken optic turning this way and that. The aperture had contracted, and Chell noted with distaste that another fragment of it had fallen out. They’d been tampering with him, likely in an effort to get him to shut up.

Fortunately, Chell knew how to do just that.

She reached out, placing her hand over the lower part of his faceplate, and immediately the core stilled, his handles drooping and his aperture relaxing. “L… lady?”

She nodded his faceplate.

“Y-you’re… you’re _okay_! You don’t feel hot anymore, and, and—and lady they wouldn’t let me see you, wouldn’t even talk to me, wouldn’t tell me how you were doing, I was so scared—”

He quieted when she placed her hand over the lower part of his faceplate again, and continued to stare at him seriously, though she knew he would never see it.

She had a lot to think about.

For starters, she’d gotten herself sick in saving him from that rainstorm, and afterward, he’d gone and babbled on as though nothing had happened. He’d apparently kept babbling, too, attempting to lead her and urging her onward even when he couldn’t see and even when she was sick to the point where she shouldn’t have been walking about in the first place. He must have recognized that she was dehydrated too, somehow, and led her to that stream where she’d passed out. And after that…

Drawing in a breath, she reached out, tapping him on the side before writing a sequence of letters and signs into his casing. 

_What did you do?_

Wheatley’s sightless optic blinked, shifting this way and that. “I… y-you’d crashed, lady, wouldn’t wake up… a-and even if you _were_ awake, n-no offense, but you… you can’t talk. So I… I called for help. A-and that human came, and…” His upper eye shield drooped. “I-I just wanted to _help_.”

_Yes._

“I… did I?”

 _Yes._ Yes, he had. That stupid, sightless hunk of metal, the one that had led her clumsily throughout the facility, the one that had betrayed her, the one that tested her and shouted at her and tried to murder her… the one that had gotten himself blinded and guilted her into taking him with her, the one that had slowed her down, the one that had never shut up…

Had it not been for him, she would have died out in the forest.

Slowly she scooped him up and set him in her lap, ignoring the pain in her arm and the weight of his casing. With one finger she began tracing into his side again:

_W-H-E-A-T-L-E-Y._

His optic narrowed and tilted for a moment before widening in shock.

She wasn’t done. With careful deliberation, she wrote out a few more words: _I… forgive… you._

Wheatley began to tremble, and his optic looked about wildly, not sure where to settle. She carefully guided it in the direction of her face, and he stilled. “Y… you do?”

A simple “yes” didn’t seem appropriate, so Chell decided on a new sign. Bending down, she wrapped her arms around the core in a hug, and he leaned into her side.


End file.
